THE PROBLEM:
The Aussie ute—famed for its toughness, ruggedness, and, well, it’s Aussie-ness. In the world of auto, the category is unique. It’s 87% male. Off-road capabilities, toughness, and reliability are key hygiene factors (unlike conventional attributes like styling or tech). Blue collar tradespeople are the tastemakers, not inner-city urbanites.

Kia was launching its first ute ever—the Kia Tasman—but there were a couple of issues.

1. With the product yet to be finalised, Kia couldn't show the ute in the ad (and therefore couldn’t showcase its performance).

2. As a brand known for family cars, Australians didn’t believe Kia had the credentials to hang with the category’s best.

The average buying cycle for a ute is 18 months, so we had to get started ASAP if we wanted to be in people’s consideration set at launch.

THE OBJECTIVES:
Given the category’s specificities, we had two key jobs.

JOB 1: Build salience around the ute launch and the Tasman nameplate.
This was to ensure we were in people’s consideration sets at launch.

JOB 2: Build equity in the upcoming ute.
Namely, linking the ute to key hygiene factors, such as toughness, reliability, off-roading, Australian-ness, and being ‘good for tradespeople’.
As the category is predominately male, we also wanted to make sure we had outsized improvements within that audience.

THE INSIGHT:
Aussies love their sporting icons—particularly in our male-dominated audience. Throughout our research, these icons continually emerged as folk-heroes to the audiences we were interested in.

What we discovered was that these icons and the great utes of our time are revered for near identical reasons. They’re unflappable in the face of adversity. They’re tough, and are able to get things done. Above all, they can overcome any challenge. It was this insight that informed the base of our strategy.

THE STRATEGY:
Without a ute to show, we saw our insight as an opportunity we could leverage. Instead of relying on our product to do the literal heavy lifting, we would employ Australia’s greatest sporting icons, and borrow their preexisting associations.
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UFC champions would be our source of toughness. Rugby players, our source of reliability. From tennis to sailing, for any association we wanted to reinforce, we found a sporting legend to match.

But getting these legends to spruik Kia’s ute wasn’t enough. We knew we had to inextricably link them to the product if we wanted these attributes to carry over.

SOLUTION/EXECUTION:
So, in the vein of the big beer ads of the early 2000’s, we made Australia’s first big ute ad.

To anchor our campaign in the world of our audience, we set our campaign in a classic Australian pub. And to link the Tasman to Aussie culture, we based our premise on a single, uniquely Australian idiosyncrasy: the nickname. This would be the mechanism by which we linked the attributes of our athletes to the Tasman, as our flagship TVC focused on their quest to get the Tasman named after themselves.

But the TVC was just the beginning. Our social content featured one-on-ones with our icons, pleading their case as to why the ute should be named after them. This helped us solidify the association between their qualities, and the qualities of the Tasman

To further anchor our campaign in the world of our audience, we even commissioned OOH designed to look like the murals commonly found in heritage Aussie pubs. In fact, we took it one step further, and turned beer coasters across the country into our own personal media channel. This meant our campaign was served up with every pint, schooner, and pot.
We even built our own version of the pub at Suncorp Stadium so that attendees could photograph themselves in the world of our ad.

This culminated in the announcement that Kia is getting a ute, and the reveal of its true, distinctly Aussie name—the Kia Tasman. Loaded with ockerisms, humour, and charm, our campaign was built to embed the Tasman not just in Aussie culture, but in Aussie folklore.

THE RESULTS:
While we had designed the campaign to build equity in the Tasman, nothing could’ve prepared us for the results we ultimately saw.

JOB 1: Build salience around the ute launch and the Tasman nameplate.
Through our efforts, we…

• Increased search for the Kia Ute by 2x among those exposed to our campaign.
• Increased search by 12x relative to Kia’s previous model launch.
• Increased search for the Kia brand by 21%, with search interest outpacing that of the Toyota Hilux and Ford Ranger (which collectively control over 50% of the market) several times during our campaign.

Compared to pre-campaign levels, we increased…

Knowledge that Kia’s getting a ute by 96%.
Among males, this increased by 138%.

Recognition of the ‘Kia Tasman’ name by 76%.

Among males, this increased by 86%.

Resulting in 86% of surveyed 4-year ute considerers now considering a Kia ute.

JOB 2: Build equity in the upcoming ute.
Compared to pre-campaign levels, we increased…

‘Toughness’ associations by 39%.
Among males, this increased by 42%.

‘Australian’ associations by 26%.
Among males, this increased at the same rate.

‘Good for off-roading’ associations by 51%.
Among males, this increased by 65%.

‘Good for tradespeople’ associations by 16%.
Among males, this increased by 20%.

‘Reliable’ associations by 18%.
Among males, this increased by 19%.

We also decreased ‘None of these’ attribution by 31% overall, indicating we are successfully embedding the Tasman into the minds of our future buyers. No surprise when we generated 97 million earned impressions and over 300 pieces of editorial coverage.

 
In doing so, we’ve carved the Kia Tasman some space in the most competitive market in Australian auto, and set Kia up for success when launch time comes. Beyond that, we made an ad that will stand the test of time. An ad that Australia’s greatest sporting icons felt proud to put their name to. And ultimately, an ad worthy of the Tasman name. Not bad for a ute ad with no ute.
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